


Of Marble and Mud

by Mynameisdoubleg



Series: Dmitri Dyubichev [3]
Category: BattleTech: MechWarrior, Classic Battletech (Tabletop RPG)
Genre: 'Mech, BattleTech - Freeform, F/M, Liao - Freeform, Mecha, Mechwarrior - Freeform, Periphery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27589312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mynameisdoubleg/pseuds/Mynameisdoubleg
Summary: A raid on the Federated Suns world of Diefenbaker goes awry, and ex-Capellan MechWarrior Dmitri Dyubichev finds himself stranded on an island with only an enemy for company. Surely, shared danger and isolation will force the two to overcome their differences, work together, earn one another's respect -- or perhaps even more. Surely that's what will happen. Haha. It'd be crazy otherwise.
Series: Dmitri Dyubichev [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016770
Kudos: 1





	Of Marble and Mud

Tea Cup Atoll, Pollock Islands  
Diefenbaker  
Federated Suns  
12 November 3025

Blue. Absolute, total blue. It showed a lack of imagination, he thought. Things usually weren’t entirely one thing or another. Certainties were for death. And taxes.  
Blue meant the sky then, and where was he? Why, down here. Lying in the mud. Dmitri felt it squelching beneath him as he shifted, though he wasn’t sure if he was sinking in or rising out. He moved again, trying to escape a particularly insistent rock digging into his back.  
He’d once heard that some ancient cultures believed mankind had been created from mud. Born from mud and returned to mud in death. Was he man or mud? Was this his end or beginning? Perhaps he should rest a little more and see what happened.  
He lay for a while, to no noticeable effect, save that the rock digging into his back seemed to grow progressively larger and sharper. He was fairly sure being dead shouldn’t hurt quite so much, but having never been dead he admitted he was no expert on the subject. Man or mud, mud or man. The evidence seemed to weigh against mud.  
So. Man.  
He levered himself into a sitting position. Not much of a man, he admitted to himself, his only possessions seemed to be a pair of khaki green shorts, a tank top, a vest with tubes like an anatomical drawing of the large intestine, and a long vibroblade. Give up and go back to the mud, start again? Too late for that probably.  
A glance around his surroundings rewarded him with a truly spectacular spasm of pain down his neck and back. He took a moment to appreciate the intensity of it. No, definitely not mud.  
This particular patch of mud was part of a long sandy beach, recently bared by a receding tide. The sea stretched out in vivid blue ripples until it merged with the sky. Gentle waves made lullaby shushing sounds as they crept up the shore. The beach sloped up to meet a line of dunes a dozen strides away.  
It would have been quite a peaceful scene, if it hadn’t been for the specter of his Commando standing at the crest, now reduced to an impromptu smokestack. Smoke billowed from a gaping hole in the right chest.  
“Oh. Right,” he muttered to himself, more than half-tempted to take his aching body’s suggestion and go back to lying in the mud.  
It had been a good plan, and like all good plans, it had quickly gone to hell.  
The concept had been simple: a water raid on Diefenbaker, a lightly-defended Davion world close to the Periphery. Hit a desalination plant in the Pollocks, a remote chain of volcanic islets and atolls splattered across the planet’s equator. Once the plant was secure, they’d call down a DropShip, then hook its hold up and fill it from the plant’s storage tanks, and blast off again before local militia had time to react.  
You had to hit hard and fast when you were a small Periphery outfit like the Angels of Mercy, especially when you were hitting the largest and most powerful state in the Inner Sphere.  
The Angels had dropped on an uninhabited island a few hundred klicks away, marched underwater to avoid detection and surfaced right on top of the target. Or in this case, right on top of a company of Davion regular ’Mechs and hovertanks in the middle of an amphibious training exercise.  
Outnumbered three to one, they’d scattered. Luckily, the Davion forces seemed to have been thrown into disarray by their appearance, and pursuit had been disorganized.  
He’d thought he’d gotten clean away as the Commando sloshed ashore on the atoll, and then the sand had erupted into gouts of flame as rockets fell all about him. A Valkyrie had come barreling along the long, thin island in a kind of half-run, half-bounce, boosted by jump jets in each leg. It had been a slugfest, the narrow island and treacherous underwater footing off either shore offering little room for maneuver.  
He’d rushed the enemy pilot, only for them to batter his ’Mech with a missile volley, then hit the jump jets and vault over his head. The next time the Valkyrie tried the same maneuver, he’d brought the left arm B3M laser up quickly enough to fire a blast right into the right leg jump jet exhaust.  
Critical Damage, his ’Mech’s heads-up display had observed dispassionately.  
The entire leg had blown out from the inside, turning the Valkyrie’s graceful leap into a drunken spiral as it plunged back to earth.  
But not before the Valkyrie’s last missile salvo had slammed into the Commando’s chest, punching through weakened armor and detonating the missiles stored there. He’d reached for the ejection lever. Ejecting, the HUD had told him helpfully. Then it had shot his command couch through the top of the Commando’s head and he’d blacked out.  
Blessed Blake knew where the rest of Angels were. Or more to the point, where the rest of the FedRats were. No food, no water, no shelter. Best hope was either the Angels or FedRats spotted his burning ’Mech and came to investigate.  
The FedRats. The Valkyrie.  
It lay on its left side a few hundred meters further up the beach, half-buried in the sand. The fall had crushed the left arm and shattered the remaining leg, but the head looked intact so there might be supplies. The hatch was on the far side so he painfully trekked around the end of the ’Mech, steering clear of the still-smoking right leg. He rounded the ’Mech, feet crunching in the sand.  
The pilot, a tall, slim woman, was sitting with her back against the ’Mech’s head, bending to examine her swollen left ankle. Her head jerked up and their gazes locked. She fumbled at her waist, bringing up a wedge-shaped pistol.  
He stopped, raised his hands. Time stretched. Waves rolled ashore. Palm trees rustled in soft amusement. The sun beat down. His arms started to grow sore.  
“Mind if I stop doing this?” he asked, and dropped his hands.  
The gun didn’t waver, but neither did it go off.  
“Look, you’re hurt, I’m hungry, and we’re the only two people on this island right now,” he tried. “Best thing we can do is cooperate until help comes.” He took a step forward.  
Her eyes narrowed. The pistol jerked up an inch, a warning.  
He stopped. “That’s a Mydron autopistol, isn’t it?”  
“You know what it is, you know what it does,” she said at last.  
“I know what it could do, if it was loaded,” he agreed. “Looks like you dropped the clip somewhere. It’s usually in front of the trigger guard. Only, yours isn’t.”  
There was a long pause. “Could have a round in the breech,” she said, defiantly.  
“Could have, could have,” he nodded. “Only one way to find out, I guess.” He drew his blade. Tested the balance and then, with a flick of the wrist, threw it. Down, point-first into the sand. He started walking towards her again.  
The gun wavered slightly, then finally dipped. She cradled it on her lap, still watching him closely.  
He crouched by her swollen foot, and cocked his head as he eyed it critically. “Might be broken. I’ll see if there’s anything we can use for a splint.” He dusted sand off his hands, then extended one to her. “Name, rank and serial number then. I’ll go first. Dmitri Dyubichev, Angels of Mercy. Actually, now that I think of it we aren’t too big on ranks or numbers.”  
“Petra Selkirk. Sergeant, Eighth Syrtis Fusiliers,” she replied, ignoring his offered hand. “Serial number gee-oh-tee-oh-aitch-ee-ell-ell.”  
Dmitri laughed. She eyed him suspiciously.  
“Nothing, nothing. Sorry,” he grinned. “It’s just. The way you said that. Like a computer voice. Like a ’Mech’s display message. ‘Reactor online.’ That kind of thing.”  
Stony silence.  
“Automatic shutdown, eh? Alright, let me go check your cockpit,” he got to his feet. “See if there’s anything usable.”  
“And why should I let you touch any of it, pirate?” Petra’s voice was dangerous, the pistol raised again.  
He sighed. “I told you, it’s Dmitri. And look, I promise we’ll share every-“  
“Is that what you were doing on Diefenbaker?” she snorted. “‘Sharing’?“  
“Just the water,” he replied softly. He jerked his chin in the direction of the sea. “You run out of water here, folks just pump more. They run out, out there in the Periphery? Folks start dying.”  
Petra frowned. “You could have traded for the water.”  
“Traded? Traded? Traded what? Dirt? Sweat? Tears?” Dmitri’s laugh was bitter. “Got plenty of that.”  
“Your ’Mechs, for a start.”  
“And left us without anything to defend ourselves,” he waved a hand dismissively. “I think we’d rather keep our freedom. The five houses tried to steal the whole damn Periphery, twice, remember? And you call us pirates?”  
“You want freedom? Fine, you’ve got it,” she shot back. “Freedom doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. You want to settle a dry world, good for you. Mine asteroids for ice, do whatever you need to do. But you don’t think like that, do you? You bandits are all the same. So much easier to steal and take what you need instead of putting in the effort to build something yourself. And you blame us? We don’t owe you anything.”  
“Like the Inner Sphere doesn’t owe Hanse Davion a throne?”  
“That’s different. We’re fighting to liberate—”  
“To liberate millions from the drudgery of being alive, I know. So generous. Look, you want to waste your one bullet ‘liberating’ me from my bandit ways, you go ahead. Otherwise, I’m going to do something about, you know, extending the drudgery of living.”  
He stalked away before she could retort, retrieved his knife and clambered up the side of the Valkyrie until he stood on its shoulder. The sun shone in diamond ripples across the waves, and a strong sea breeze ran its cool fingers through his hair. He tilted his face sunward, trying to forget the woman, enjoying the moment.  
And it was gone. Dmitri brought his hand up over his eyes to shield them against the sun’s glare, and turned in a slow circle, scanning the horizon. He could see the low, dark blurs of perhaps a score of different islands in all directions. More surprisingly, pillars of smoke were rising from nearly a dozen of them. He frowned. All four Angel ’Mechs couldn’t cause that much damage over such a wide area in such a short span of time. Either the FedRats had revealed a hidden pyromaniac streak or something very odd was going on. Either way, whatever was causing the chaos would make it that much more difficult for any search party to find the pair of them.  
Dmitri crawled inside the Valkyrie’s cockpit, lifted up the command seat cushion and found the homing beacon located beneath it. He pressed the stud on his vibroblade’s handle and brought the humming blade down on the beacon’s battery casing. Dmitri wanted to be rescued, sure, but he’d rather it was his own side. No sense in making it easy for the FedRats. The Mydron’s clip was jammed under the seat as well. He tucked it into the back of the waistband of his shorts. He’d return it later. Maybe.  
Finally, he opened the storage locker and hauled the contents back down to where Petra still sat in the sand, glowering at him. Dmitri smothered his frustration. He’d been like her, a regular solider in a house military. Once. People could change, like, well, like mud in the sea. If they were stuck out here with each other, might be best if they weren’t at each other’s throats. If he could change, so might she. Try a different tack, he figured.  
“Good news and bad news,” he reported. “The good news is, the locker wasn’t damaged so we’ve got maybe two days of water, basic medical supplies including anti-inflammatories for your leg, and a pair of emergency signaling flares. The bad news is, your food also survived,” he held up a sealed package. “This is, uh. Brown. Meat, possibly?”  
Petra grimaced wryly. Progress, he figured. “Taygetan bean stew,” she corrected. “Absolutely delicious. You should try it. I insist.”  
“That good, eh?”  
“Internal damage,” she mimicked. “What about yours?”  
“On the char-broiled side of cooked, looks like. Your own fault for being such a good shot. Maybe we can supplement our diet a little bit then. Lots of good fish in the sea, as they say,” Dmitri mused. “Maybe I could tie my knife to a branch or pole, do some spear-fishing.”  
“You ever fished before?” she asked doubtfully.  
“Yeah, sure, lots of times. Well, once. Almost. Seen a couple of vids.”  
“Having someone out here with me should be comforting,” Petra rolled her eyes. “For the record: I’m not comforted.”  
“How hard can it be? First things first though, let’s see about that foot of yours,” he hunched over. “Don’t worry, I’m a slightly better medic than I am fisherman.”  
“Comfort levels critical.”  
Once her leg was splinted, the rest of the day was spent hauling a large wedge of blown-off armor and propping it up to create some shade and keep the worst of the sun off them. A flight of four delta-shaped conventional fighters passed booming overhead, but Dmitri reckoned they’d been flying too high and fast to spot anything.  
He collected driftwood and started a fire using the heater for the rations. The taste of the stew was all that Petra had promised, and more. They ate in silence. The sun dipped towards the horizon, slowly at first, then seemingly with gathering speed until the last sliver vanished in a blink.  
Dmitri folded his cooling vest as a pillow and lay back on the sand. “Shelter, water, food—if that’s not stretching the definition too far—I’d say we’re set until someone finds us.”  
“Just have to watch out for the kappa,” said Petra.  
“The what? Greek letters? Doesn’t sound too scary.”  
“Incoming message: Don’t be an idiot,” she shook her head. “I’m serious here. Kappa as in the Asian folklore creature. It’s the name they’ve given here to an indigenous reptile, bit like a cross between an alligator and a hippo. Usually only really dangerous to children, the elderly and, you know, the injured and infirm.” She looked down meaningfully at her bound leg. “Luckily, they tend of avoid people. Only aggressive when their habitats are disturbed.”  
“Well, huh, I’ll try not to be too disturbing then,” he fumbled, uncomfortable. “You know, back on Tikonov the scariest thing we had was a kind of shrew. When threatened, it vomits. It, uh, smells pretty bad.”  
“How terrifying.”  
“Yeah, well, you try washing that out of your combat boots. The horror, the horror.”  
“Wait a minute, Tikonov? You’re from the Capellan Confederation?”  
“Once upon a time. Sorry,” Dmitri said in mock-apology. “Try not to hate me any more than you already do.”  
“A deserter,” she spat the word, like it tasted worse than bean stew. “Where is your honor?”  
“Ah, honor. Spare me. You nobles and your honor, prancing about in tin-foil spurs play-acting like it’s still the middle ages. You’re as bad as the Snakes with their pidgin Japanese and comic-book bushido.”  
“Honor means people can rely on me. To keep my word, stay true to my oath. Not go running at the first sign of trouble like some Periphery raider.”  
“I’m here now, aren’t I?” Dmitri protested. “Could have left you here to fend for yourself.”  
“Self-interest,” she sniffed. “You’re just worried about how we’re going to treat you when we capture you and the rest of your pirate buddies. You figure it’ll be easier for you if you stay here.”  
Blessed Blake in a bright blue Banshee, looking after this woman was anything but easy, Dmitri groused to himself. Most people might have been made from mud, but this one was carved from solid stone. He rolled on his side, his back to Petra, and pretended to sleep. Didn’t have to pretend for very long.

“Dmitri.”  
He awoke with a jerk. A brief flash a panic, like a man drowning—why so dark, which way was up—and then the urgent voice brought his consciousness to the surface.  
“Dmitri, the beach.”  
There, at the edge of the water, barely visible in the flickering light of their driftwood fire, sat a massive, glistening, squat shape, covered in scales with a spiky bone crest across the back of its head.  
“Kappa,” hissed Petra, gritting her teeth as she struggled to stand. A small survival knife glinted in her hand.  
Dmitri had barely found his feet when the kappa gave a shivering cry, then broke into a thundering earth-shaking run, charging straight towards them. Dmitri drew his blade as it bore down on him with uncanny speed, and tried to sidestep and strike just as it passed him. Instead, the kappa tossed its head and the bony crest slammed into Dmitri’s calf, sweeping his legs from under him and he was briefly airborne, before crashing back down to the ground. His vibroblade tumbled from his nerveless hand.  
The creature slowed, turned, and spotted him lying in the sand. It screeched again and pawed the ground. Dmitri fumbled blindly, trying to find the hilt of his blade without taking his eyes off the kappa. Suddenly its head jerked around, looking away.  
“Hey! Hey!” Petra was shouting at it, throwing stones, hobbling backwards slowly.  
The kappa turned to face her.  
Dmitri glanced down, found his blade. Gathered his feet under him and sprang onto the creature’s back before it could charge. He reversed his grip on the vibroblade and brought it stabbing down into the kappa’s neck.  
Its cries turned to shrieks. It dropped to the sand, preparing to roll over and crush him under its weight. Dmitri stabbed down again, wildly, desperately, piercing its neck, its head, finally driving his blade into the thing’s eye. It wailed like a demon and began thrashing wildly, sending Dmitri sprawling. The kappa found its feet, rounded on him, vibroblade still buried to the hilt in its eye socket. He scrabbled back frantically, feeling like a man in a nightmare, as though the sand stuck to him like molasses, defeating every attempt to run.  
The kappa took a step towards him, another, staggered, then suddenly the strength seemed to drain from its body and it pitched face-first into the sand.  
The only sound was Dmitri’s ragged breathing. Petra came limping back to the campfire.  
Dmitri found his feet. “That went well,” he observed, looking down at the oozing scratches where the kappa had raked his leg.  
Petra looked at him for a long moment. Nodded once. Opened the survival kit from her ’Mech and wordlessly handed him a roll of bandages. 

It was late afternoon when the hovercraft appeared on the horizon. Dmitri and Petra watched from the beach as the black shape grew steadily larger, clearly headed directly for their island. A red flare belched candy-colored smoke at their feet, blown into a long fiery tail by the strong wind.  
“Looks like someone’s found us,” he observed unnecessarily, if only to break the increasingly strained silence.  
Petra squinted at the approaching craft. “But who, that’s the question, isn’t it?” Her hand rested on the butt of the pistol at her waist, and shifted her gaze back to Dmitri.  
He ran a hand absently through his dirty, blond hair. Tried to affect a nonchalance he didn’t feel, as his stomach tied in knots. “Tell you what. If it’s one of yours, I’ll surrender. If it’s one of ours, you do. Deal?” He smiled easily. The Angels didn’t own any hovercraft. She nodded once, curtly, probably thinking the same thing.  
He wasn’t a prisoner yet, Dmitri reminded himself. He still had his vibroblade, and the clip for Petra’s pistol tucked into his shorts.  
As the hovercraft approached the beach, he could see it was a 50-ton Condor, painted in a fractured blue and grey color scheme with the name Hard Place scrawled in red on the commander’s cupola. In theory, it had a crew of two—pilot and commander/gunner—though this meant the overworked commander had to aim and fire the main guns while also communicating with the rest of the platoon and issuing orders to the pilot, so in practice some Condors carried three or four crewmen. Two he could handle, maybe. Three or four would be tricky.  
He stood slowly, and saw Petra clamber painfully to her feet from the corner of his eye.  
The tank slewed to a stop at the edge of the water, and the engines were muted from a roar to a dull throbbing. The commander’s cupola hissed open, two hands gripped the rim and a figure levered itself half-out of the tank. A shaven-headed woman in a black leather jacket and a T-Shirt emblazoned with “No Mercy.”  
“Dmitri!” she shouted happily. “We’ve been worried sick about you. Been searching every speck of sand between here and the DropShip, and here we find you playing Robinson Crusoe.”  
He blinked. Twice, hard, just to make sure. “Angela. Where the hell’d you get the tank?”  
“It’s a rebellion! The locals here hate the Davions. Half the militia took our little raid as a chance to get some payback. Everyone’s shooting at everyone. It’s total chaos,” she grinned, then shrugged. “Still mad about the Reunification War, apparently.”  
He shook his head in disbelief. “That was 500 years ago.”  
“Hey, you don’t have to tell me. Heads of bloody stone, I reckon,” she glanced down the cupola into the tank. “Classy stone, like uh, marble, eh guys?” She glanced back up. “Who’s the patient?”  
“Of course, where are my manners? Petra Selkirk, this is Angela Clement, the Angel of Mercy to her friends. Angie, this is Petra, the Voice of Honor. Not sure she has any friends.”  
“Poor girl. Explains why she’s wasting her time with you,” Angela arched an eyebrow. “It’ll be tight, but guess we’ve got room for one more. Unless she’s talked you into staying on this rock?” Another glance down into the tank. “Lovely, beautiful, enchanting rock, right guys?”  
Dmitri glanced back at Petra, standing rigid on the beach, her hand still clamped on the grip of her pistol. Their eyes locked and he read the tension in her features. “No,” he said at last. “I think she’ll be extending her island vacation a little.”  
Angela frowned a little, then gave a quick shrug. “Whatever then. ’Mechs are back at the DropShip. We’ve got a rebellion to fight! Hop in, time’s wasting.” She disappeared back into the Condor.  
Dmitri walked back Petra, stopped a dozen strides away. He fished the Mydron ammo clip from the back of his shorts. “Here,” he called and tossed it to her, briefly enjoying the look of surprise that flashed across her face. “That ought to keep you safe until your friends arrive. We’ll let your people know where you are, when we get back to our DropShip.”  
He turned and began to walk down to the hovertank. Behind him, there was a metallic click of a weapon being cocked. He looked back.  
“Can’t let you do that,” Petra raised the Mydron. “If I let you leave, you’ll just be back. If not here, then some other planet. You’re a pirate, it’s what you do.”  
Dmitri looked at her sadly. “Your honor won’t allow it?” he asked. “I wish you could change. I wish you could see what your honor gets you. What it gets everyone.”  
He started walking again.  
Dmitri heard a noise like a thunderclap behind him and something hammered into his back just below the shoulder blade. He looked down and saw crimson slowly spreading across his chest. He sank to his knees into the sand, looked up to see one of the Condor’s lasers swivel slightly. He was blinded by a sudden, intense flash of green, and felt a blast of heat as the beam passed bare meters away.  
What the Defiance B3M laser did to armor was unbelievable. What it did to people was unholy. Petra’s shriek was cut off as soon as it began, flesh and bone blackening and vaporizing in an instant, leaving only a long trail of molten glass where the sand had melted as the beam blasted straight through her.  
Dmitri could hear Angel shouting something but it seemed so far away. His knees gave way and he fell into the mud, rolled onto his back. Found himself looking up at the sky.  
It really was too much blue.

The Diefenbaker Rebellion (excerpt from “A History of the Capellan March”, Sosa Press, 3036)  
Short-lived uprising by four Planetary Guards regiments, supported by an unknown number of Periphery mercenaries, triggered by conflicts between “oldcomer” families tracing descent from the Taurian Concordat settlers, and “newcomer” families from other worlds.  
Arrival of off-world reinforcements brought a quick end to hostilities and the surrender of the rebel forces within two months. The Periphery mercenaries escaped off-planet.


End file.
